1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a receiver which can receive contents distributed through a first communication system and a second communication system, for example, the Internet and the television (hereinafter, sometimes abbreviated as “TV”) broadcasting, and also concerns a distribution method of contents using such a receiver.
In this case, contents refer to data, irrespective of analog or digital data, which can be distributed through at least one of these communication systems.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, a receiver which outputs contents distributed through two communication systems has been proposed. FIG. 9 is a block diagram that exemplifies a construction of a television receiver 101 that is provided with a display section which displays video signals from both of the TV broadcasting and the Internet.
TV broadcasting signals are received by a TV antenna 102, and inputted to a tuner 111 of a TV receiver 101. The tuner 111, which follows instructions from a microprocessor 114 that operates based upon a control program stored in a ROM 116, receives a TV broadcasting signal of a TV broadcasting channel specified by a remote commander 103, and outputs a audio signal and a video signal to a video/audio selection circuit 113. Moreover the tuner 111 inputs the video signal to a VBI (vertical blanking interval) data slicer 112. The VBI data slicer 112 extracts a character data signal for use in character broadcasting and a signal containing URL (uniform resource locators) information (hereinafter, referred to simply as “URL data”) of a predetermined network domain which provides specific services on the Internet, and outputs these to the microprocessor 114. The microprocessor 114 stores the URL data in the RAM 115.
Upon receipt of an instruction for connection to an access point for providing network services from the remote commander 103, the microprocessor 114 reads the URL data from the RAM 115, and outputs a communication signal for connecting to a predetermined provider to a data modem 118. The data modem 118 modulates this communication signal to a predetermined frequency signal in conformity with the telephone line, and outputs this to the telephone line through a modular jack 104.
Data signals from a supplier of predetermined network services are transferred through the telephone line via a machine of a provider. The data signals, inputted through the modular jack 104, are subjected to a demodulation process in the data modem 118, and then inputted to the microprocessor 114. The microprocessor 114 processes the data signals thus demodulated, and generates video data and audio data. Then, the microprocessor 114 outputs the video data and audio data to the video encoder 117 and the audio encoder 119.
The video encoder 117 converts the video data inputted through the microprocessor 114 to a video signal, and outputs this to the video/audio selection circuit 113. Moreover, the audio encoder 119 converts the audio data inputted through the microprocessor 114 to an audio signal, and outputs this to the video/audio selection circuit 113.
The video/audio selection circuit 113 properly selects either of the video signal inputted from the tuner 111 and the video signal inputted from the video encoder 117, or both of them, and outputs the resulting signal to a video signal control circuit 121. Moreover, the video/audio selection circuit 113 selects either of the audio signal inputted from the tuner 111 and the audio signal inputted from the audio encoder 119, and outputs the resulting signal to an audio signal amplification circuit 120.
The video signal control circuit 121 converts the video signal to an RGB signal, and outputs this to an RGB signal amplification circuit 122. The RGB signal, outputted from the video signal control circuit 121 and amplified by the RGB signal amplification circuit 122, is then outputted to a CRT 123. Moreover, the audio signal, outputted from the video/audio signal selection circuit 113, is amplified by the audio signal amplification circuit 120, and then outputted to a speaker 124.
The television receiver 101, arranged as described above, extracts URL data that has been multiplexed on the vertical blanking interval of the TV video signal. Thus, in an attempt to display a home page related to a TV broadcasting program being currently displayed, the user is allowed to connect to an access point corresponding to the URL of the network service simply through an operation for instructing the connection to the Internet; thus, it is not necessary for the user to input the URL consisting of a plurality of characters by using a plurality of keys. This technique has been proposed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-162818 (1997).
The information distributed through the TV broadcast, the TV broadcasting program typically, is basically distributed one-directionally. The resulting problems are that, when this service is charged, a contract is preliminarily required, and that, even when the contract has been made, the contract has been made for each of the broadcasting channels and it is difficult to make a selection as to whether or not a contract should be made for each of pieces of information (programs).